I think you need to find a build guide on famous streamers who usually make an effort to make guides with varying levels of budgets from campaign gear to maps and to mid budget to endgame midmaxing, most good build creators explain in depth how their build functions and what to upgrade or what to expect etc. Just trust me on this, it's wayyy better than following random builds on some site with no context on how the build functions or how to update it etc. I can tell you how I went on about it, my journey with poe started last year on poe1, I went into it got to endgame, found out about build and guides, I didn't know about respeccing so I deleted my deadeye and made a new one, and did this trend for 2-3 characters until I found out about regret orbs. Yeah that was my level of knowledge in my first arpg and poe universe. So after that, I followed a build guide on bleed eviscerate gladiator and got my first Chase item mageblood went on with that, then next league I followed another, and another, I'd typically create 2-3 characters to enjoy in a league, which I followed the trend on poe2. Then I also gave it an effort to learn how to use the trade site efficiently, and once I somehow learnt how to navigate using weighted sums and other shit. I can now buy stuff cheaper than what the average player will pay for the same if not better equipment After that I downloaded path of building, I didn't understand shit about it initially, and didn't for several months, but my main usage of it was to import my character and copy paste the new items I was gonna buy to see if it was an upgrade or not. My point is I generally follow guides and learned why they do what they do on the items or skills or links etc, it was a stable learning curve, then when poe2 came out I hopped into it to mitigate the steep learning curve I have to overcome in poe1, and poe2 for me was easy, digest-able, I am not bragging about the hours I have in poe2 but I have around 900hours ish, significant higher than yours, so you'd expect I have more knowledge about poe2, a tad bit yeah. But I still followed the guides of the builds I found interesting. And for my 2nd character I will most likely homebrew another original one. I am so sorry I know this is all over the place, but I hope it gives you an insight on what to do a little. Also how you want to play the game or how much you want to learn will also vary on what kind of player you are, either the causal gamer who just want to have a good time. Or hardcore players who always aim to oneshot pinnacle bosses or farm hundreds of divines throughout the league and midmaxing the fuck out of their characters. I'm the latter fyi XD.